


i'm your puppet

by hawrthiacoopri



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Love Triangle!, and pining jealous ben, hahha i love benverly!!! the best, so here yall go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 18:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11742504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawrthiacoopri/pseuds/hawrthiacoopri
Summary: Ben hated dancing. He hated it with everything inside him that could hate something that wasn't actually hurting him. He hated how he looked when he danced, how people looked /at/ him when he danced, and most importantly, how he thought Beverly looked at him when he danced, did anything that might involve exposing his body.So how had he gotten himself into a dance class in the Denbrough's basement with Beverly Marsh?





	i'm your puppet

Ben hated dancing. He hated it with everything inside him that could hate something that wasn't actually hurting him. He hated how he looked when he danced, how people looked /at/ him when he danced, and most importantly, how he thought Beverly looked at him when he danced, did anything that might involve exposing his body. 

He never went to dance halls, even as a teenager, and he never dared even sway to music. 

So how had he gotten himself into a dance class in the Denbrough's basement with Beverly Marsh? He knew the answer, of course. She had asked him. And fat boys didn't refuse pretty girls who they were in love with. 

That just wasn't something one did. 

Ben wasn't as fat as he once was, he knew that- he'd already begun making progress towards losing weight- but he was still fat, he was still a nothing, and Beverly was still, and would always be, out of his league, with her long legs and curly red hair and her scatterings of freckles, her perfect figure and her musical laugh. 

She was beautiful, and so he loved her. Ben wasn't beautiful, and so no one loved him. Well, his mother loved him, but she was angry at him right now. She hated that Ben was changing himself, even if it was obviously for the best. Ben could do so many more /things/ now, like walk up stairs more easily, or run farther. He vomited when he was sometimes doing it, sure, but forcing a fat kid who rarely even moved from his living room to run a mile and a half every day would always be hard. And he could stand to eat what his mom called 'rabbit food' now, so they conserved money at restaurants when ben ordered salads. 

And, obviously, he was now just about fit enough to be able to be taught to dance by Bill and Beverly and still hate his body. Or maybe it was just how much he loved the redhead that made that happen. 

Ben sat on a crate as he watched Beverly and Bill press themselves together in what Beverly had called a ballroom position, Beverly looking at Ben, Ben and Bill looking at Beverly.

"So, basically," she said, her hair cascading over her shoulder and glimmering softly, "you do the square step I showed you earlier, but you have to make sure your partner doesn't step on your toe." she looked at Bill with faux aggravation, and he grinned back cheekily. Ben watched slightly enviously as Bill's perfectly straight teeth showed and he reached up to touch his own, gapped teeth. He felt the same miserable settlement he always felt looking at Bill if it went unchecked, and quickly pushed it away. Bill was his friend. Bill was an amazing, smart person, he was kind, he loved Ben like a brother and supported him no matter what, he- 

Well, what it came down to was that Bill looked absolutely perfect next to Beverly. Against Beverly. Bill looked perfect every way, it was as if he had been made to tantalize and tease Ben with his looks. He was tall, he was strong, he was lean... He was everything Ben wasn't. The only thing Ben had on Bill, in his own opinion, though he'd never say it for he was much too sweet, was personability. He knew how to talk to people. Bill holed himself up in his room and wrote and wrote (which Ben was also jealous of, he spent all day writing and he still looked like that?), while Ben took walks and hung out with the other Losers individually. Ben had a way of making you feel like the most special, interesting person in the world- it was something in his eyes. The way he nodded and listened and replied. 

He was more affable than Bill, and deep inside he knew it, but people skills don't seem to matter when you're as handsome as Bill, do they? You could be socially awkward like him and still be adored. 

“Juh-juh-gee, suh-horry, Bev,” Bill said, still smiling as they began to do a joint box step. “Didn’t knuh-now I upset yuh-y-you so much.” 

Beverly rolled her eyes, continuing to instruct Ben. “And after you get the box step down, you just, you know, do it slower or faster depending, and sway and swirl.” The pair did just that, before Bill dipped Beverly swiftly and Ben’s heart nearly stopped as Bill and Beverly were suddenly no less than an inch apart. It quickly swung into motion again, thudding as hard as it did when he took runs, nervous and anticipating some fairytale kiss that he supposed would take places as he looked on helplessly. Some sort of punishment for every imperfect boy in the world, that made sure they had no question in their minds that they weren’t worthy.

But Bill pulled back, and let Beverly fix her hair and push him off. “Just like that, Ben,” she said shortly. “Except for don’t dip me like he did.” She pointed at the tall boy in accusation and he, again, smiled coyly. Ben felt the look wring his heart just a little bit extra, before the moment was over and he was suddenly being pulled to his feet. 

Ben let out a “huh?’’, a dull and stupid sound, as Beverly kept pulling him off the crate which creaked as his weight was lifted off of it. He felt the usual flush of shame before it was gone, drowned in everything that was being close to Beverly Marsh. She was slipping her slight fingers between Ben’s pudgy ones as she assumed the original position. He could smell the mint gum she was always chewing so compulsively, that’s how close they were, how near in height they were. He didn’t dare look anywhere, and he wished he could just close his eyes. He couldn’t look her straight in the eyes. He couldn’t look over her head. He couldn’t look to the side, because Bill was there and he didn’t want the shame looking at Ben produced right now. He couldn’t even look down, because… the redness crept back up to his ears. An image of a gangly, tall young girl with tangled curls and dense freckles in a decrepit house, holding a too-small shirt over her chest flashed before his eyes, and something in the way he felt now reminded him of how he’d felt then. 

“See, I’ve set you up perfectly already, Benners!” The nickname made Ben blush somehow redder and Beverly giggle, and Ben finally nods.

“Yeah, I think I got it.”

Beverly beamed, her pride coming off in waves. “Great! Wanna do just a box step?”

“Uh, I- yeah.”

Beverly nodded reassuringly, knowing how anxious Ben got (even if she didn’t know why to it’s full extent), and starting her steps. Ben followed suit, stumbling over himself a bit before he began to understand the movements more. He was shockingly graceful for a boy his size, for a boy who’d been the size he had once been for the majority of his life, and even Bill noticed. He said nothing, of course, he knew how Ben could be, but he did save the knowledge for later, in one of his many files he saved for his friends. 

“You’re doing great,” She whispered in his ear. “You’re good at this.” The hair on the back of Ben’s neck prickled and he coughed nervously. 

“Th-thanks,” he breathed. “You are too, Bevvie.” She nodded in gratitude, counting lowly under her breath. She was so focused on dancing, Ben wondered if she really was so good at dancing. Her feet seemed to stutter a great deal, and she sure cursed under her breath a lot while they practiced for as skilled a dancer as she claimed to be. Ben shook it off. No, it couldn't be. Beverly was good at anything she tried. That was her charm.

That was why, he thought as the pit of his stomach dropped, she and Bill went together so well. They were the picturesque dynamic duo. Ben had long ago accepted the way that it had to be: Beverly and Bill were destined for perfection. Odd couples never happened in real life. You met your match and you settled. Ben and Beverly didn’t match. Beverly Hanscom may sound better than Beverly Denbrough to his ears, but that changed nothing. 

Beverly was tapping his chest to get his attention. “Wanna dip me?” She asked, eyes gleaming in her usual excited way. Ben nodded, not able to speak because of the way she was looking at him. Beverly’s looks always rendered him speechless. 

So Ben did. He put a sure arm beneath her, letting her fall backward onto it while he looked at her almost adoringly. Her laughing, smiling face reminded him that he really would do anything for her- she had the greatest power over him of any person in the world, and he gave it willingly, after all- and how gorgeous she really was. Her freckles scrunched up as she laughed at him, and his heart almost hurt   
(burned, not hurt, it burned)  
at how joyful she looked in his arms. 

He would have given anything for her. 

She leaned back up, standing across from him and tucking some hair behind her ear. “That was good! You did great, Ben.”

“Thanks, Bev, I tried.” Ben shuffled a little under her gaze. He could barely look at her, seeming to look on the outskirts of a radiance coming from her only he could see. 

“You tried… successfully.” 

They were all silent, before Bill cleared his throat.

“Huh-hey, Bev, I thuh-think Richie was cuh-c-homing over with Muh-honoply.” He gestured at the door in his awkward, dismissive way, and Beverly nodded. 

“I’ll go check. You boys be good…” She wagged her finger at them from the doorframe, and then the door clicked shut. 

The two boys stood in silence a moment longer, before Bill, again, broke the silence. 

“She knuh-knows you luh-like her, you know.” Ben looked up, surprised. “Shuh-she’s just trying tuh-t-to make you muh-hore comfoh-hortable around her.”

“I don’t like her,” Ben mumbled.

Bill cocked his head. “Whuh-hat?”

“I don’t like her.” He gulped, looking Bill straight in the eye and saying strongly, “I- I love her. I know I do, Bill. She makes me so happy, I can’t stop thinking about her, I-”

“She likes you, too.” Any trace of a stutter was gone. Bill’s voice was loud- harsh, even- and he had crossed his arms. 

“Huh? Bill, what-”

“Beverly luh-loves back you, Ben. Duh-hon’t be a stupe. She looks at you luh-l-luh-hike-”

“-like she looked at you,” Ben said in awe. Bill looked away huffily. Maybe he got jealous, too, that he couldn’t have Beverly Marsh.

“Mhm.”

The silence stretched for what seemed like an hour, Ben shifting and looking at his hands while Bill chewed on his cheek and drew even further into himself. 

“Okay,” Ben said finally.

“Yuh-yeah. Cuh-hongrats. Come down stairs, now. Wuh-he’re playing M-m-m-monopoly..”

“Yeah, Big Bill,” Ben said. His voice had gained a new undertone of shaky confidence, but he still sounded like the same sweet boy he’d alsos been, and he gave Bill a tight hug. Bill looked surprised, angry even, but he did hug back. You just had to, when Ben hugged you. It was basically a rule.

“Let’s play some Monopoly.”


End file.
